FFI and Partners Urge World Health Assembly Resolution on Universal Mandatory Folic Acid Fortification

Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank

Read the original press release in Rollins News.

Maternal intake of folate before and during early pregnancy is the most effective way to prevent spina bifida and anencephaly in infants—two global neural tube defect disorders that are severe, disabling, and often fatal. Despite more than 30 years of research evidence proving the safety, affordability, and effectiveness of food fortification, only about 60 countries have chosen to make the fortification of stable foods like wheat flour, maize flour, or rice mandatory. 

A new health policy article led by researchers from Emory University’s Center for Spina Bifida Prevention (CSBP)—in collaboration with FFI, neurosurgeons from the G4 Alliance, and the Global Alliance for Prevention of Spina Bifida F (GAPSBiF)—and published in The Lancet Global Health places an urgent call for the World Health Assembly to take immediate action and to pass a resolution to make universal folic acid fortification of common staples mandatory.

"Only a quarter of all preventable spina bifida and anencephaly cases worldwide are currently avoided by food fortification,” says Vijaya Kancherla, PhD, deputy director of Emory’s Center for Spina Bifida Prevention. “Such a resolution could accelerate the slow pace of spina bifida and anencephaly prevention globally, and will assist countries to reach their 2030 Sustainable Development Goals on child mortality and health equity. The cost of inaction is profound, and disproportionately impacts susceptible populations in low- and middle-income countries.”

Current estimates show that more than 100 countries do not have folic acid fortification programs in place. The authors cite lack of political will and requests for more research (despite a substantial body of evidence) as barriers to adoption of a policy that the US Centers for Disease Control has praised as one of the 10 greatest public health achievements in the United States between 2001-2010. The hesitancy by policy makers to act has resulted in more than 4 million preventable cases of spina bifida and anencephaly globally in the 30 years since the British Medical Research Council’s landmark trial provided unequivocal evidence on folic acid.